In recent years, imaging devices such as cameras have been made increasingly smaller in size. Attention is now being focused on technology for correcting the “hand shake (blur or unintentional movement)” phenomenon.
Due to the smaller sizes of cameras, the holdability drops at the time of taking a picture. Further, the degree of freedom is increased in comparison with conventional type of photography such as with the one-handed shooting in the method of taking a picture by a camera mounted in a mobile phone.
When taking a picture, when taking the picture by various methods or in a state with no stability in this way, the camera shakes (is unintentionally moved (is blurred)) when depressing the shutter button and hand shake occurs.
For example, in the case of taking a picture under dark conditions where the exposure time is long, the shutter speed becomes slow and the camera ends up shaking in many cases.
Further, in a case of taking a picture by raising the sensitivity under the exposure conditions to shorten the exposure time, noise ends up being superposed and the image becomes rough.
In order to solve this problem, devices correcting such hand shake are being mounted on single-lens reflex cameras and, recently, on compact cameras as well.
For example, an optical type hand shake correction device inclining the lens to match with the shaking for correcting the hand shake is being commercialized, but if considering the reduction in size in recent years and the mounting of such devices in mobile phone cameras, this would be very difficult in terms of space.
Further, as another method, various types of imaging devices able to obtain an image free from shaking by image processing from among a plurality of images are being proposed.
For example, Patent Document 1 (Japanese Patent Publication (A) No. 10-108079) discloses an imaging device which mixes captured image information differing in exposure conditions to obtain an image extended in dynamic range during which, when mixing captured image information of substantially the same time obtained by pixels differing in exposure conditions, using the captured image information of at least one of the exposure conditions overlappingly.
Patent Document 2 (Japanese Patent Publication (A) No. 2004-279514) discloses a correction device storing in advance a hand shake limit exposure time unique to the photographer based on detection information of an angle detection sensor provided in a camera and focal length information and aperture stop information of the camera and, when the suitable exposure time becomes longer than the hand shake limit exposure time, capturing images a plurality of times by a shorter exposure time and mixing the images to correct the hand shake.
Patent Document 3 (Japanese Patent Publication (A) No. 2003-32559) discloses an imaging device splitting light flux from a lens into two and attenuating one light flux to obtain two object images having a luminance difference at different regions on an imaging surface of an imaging element and making the charge storage times and charge storage start timings of these two image data equal to each other to thereby obtain new image data having an extended dynamic range.
Patent Document 4 (Japanese Patent Publication (A) No. 7-177519) discloses a movement vector detection method detecting a movement vector for each thinned block and performing interpolation from the detected movement vectors to thereby give a movement vector to any block not detected and performing detection for each block in a last movement vector detection.
Patent Document 5 (Japanese Patent Publication (A) No. 6-169452) discloses an image compression method evaluating an image and transmitting data with a high definition for a portion judged as important and transmitting data with a low definition for a portion which moves little or is stationary.    Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent Publication (A) No. 10-108079    Patent Document 2: Japanese Patent Publication (A) No. 2004-279514    Patent Document 3: Japanese Patent Publication (A) No. 2003-32559    Patent Document 4: Japanese Patent Publication (A) No. 7-177519    Patent Document 5: Japanese Patent Publication (A) No. 6-169452